Thinking about Ironman and other things

Well, my deepest apologies for not posting in a while. It's just been hard to post with the job, Christmas shopping, and the million other things in life that get in the way.
On the training front things are going well. I'm starting to get back into a routine. I'm averaging nearly 9-10k yards swimming per week. I'm trying to get back on to the trainer, likewise I'm running 2-3 times a week, although the sub freezing temperatures of the New England Winter have kept me limited so far. Wednesday I managed to do a pretty killer workout on the treadmill. It was 52 minutes long ( I was hoping for one hour but accidently hit the stop button.) I was doing it as an interval session. 4 minutes at 7.5mph or 8min/ mile pace followed by 4 minutes at 9.0 miles per hour of 6:40/mile pace. It felt good as it was the first speed work I had done since a 10k road race on Thanksgiving. Tomorrow I'm hoping to take advantage of warm temperatures to get a long run in, during a rain storm, because the temperatures are expected to go back into the frigid zone.

Throughout most of this year I have been thinking about the mindset and training I did when I was doing the Ironman in 2008 and 2009. Those years I trained like an animal through the cold, the darkness and the bad weather. I looked at my American Airlines frequent flier miles and I had a bunch I had to use up since my last trek to New Zealand. So I cashed them in for a one way flight to Louisville ( I will have to buy a return flight.) The goal is that I will hopefully have enough of my income tax check leftover and there will still be entry spots left over to get me into Ironman Kentucky. I've already been number crunching the flight would cost about $150, hotel and rental car would come to $606, I'm debating whether or not to use tri bike transport, but booked my flight out of LaGuardia on a larger plane in case I decide to hoof the bike with me. So my training will take an Ironman focus.

Likewise I've been trying to figure out what to do with myself. The Navy hasn't gotten back to me so I've started taking a look at what I want to do with my life. As much as I would like to go back to school part of me is wondering would it be worth the expense. A few people have told me to get into triathlon coaching. While part of me would be excited to do it, the other part of me is like am I skilled enough? Let's face it I train low tech, I race low tech, I'm not a pro, I've never won anything overall, I don't have degrees in biology, or exercise science. Part of me wonders am I qualified to be a coach? I mean people listen to me when I give little pieces of advice but would someone trust me if I'm asking for cash for it? Maybe I second guess myself too much, but despite my passion for the sport I just don't know if people would trust me to coach them without a pro card, or race win on my resume, but I haven't discounted it completely. For now I have holiday gifts to get and details to iron out, but more maybe coming on this coaching idea.

R.D.